The Big Dot is in the city of Ottawa at the moment, currently enjoying a musical show (before I finished posting this she has appeared online, obviously back from the show. So, technically, this statement is incorrect). Last night she freed up some time from her busy Ottawa schedule to meet with myself, and eventually Evan and Katy.
I met Dot in Centretown after work (Figure 1). It was cool and raining lightly. I did have a light sweater on and didn’t find it too cold at the time, but I did shelter myself from the rain under one of Mother Nature’s umbrellas (a tree). We met near Bay station, which is conveniently located to her Ottawa habitat. Despite a dead phone, and a mixup of street names, we still found each other and I was dry.
Figure 1: Centretown
Hopped on a bus to the west end of the city–Lincoln Fields, specifically (Figure 2). It is still raining by the time we get off the bus and, on the walk to my building, I learn that Keeves has traumatized another young lady while he was in a drunken stupor. Keeves: +2, World: -8 billion.
Figure 2: Ottawa as Dot Has Seen It
A tour of my apartment is followed by a trip to Westboro–Dominion station, specifically (Figure 2)–where we met with Evan and Katy. By this time it was colder and raining much harder, two weather conditions that I completely forgot about when I left my apartment. Dot’s umbrella came in handy, but it could not save her personal belongings from their saturated fate. Through some kind of unreproducible set of actions and reactions, Dot’s purse emptied onto a wet Richmond Road. This included cash and an unlaminated birth certificate (laminating renders it void). If only this were the worst thing that would happen that evening…
But of course, there’s always a worse thing that can happen until someone pulls out a fart machine. At the Works, Katy takes the opportunity to give me a wonderful gift of some spices from Some-African-Place, as well as a remote controlled fart machine (I’m sorry; I had to bold it). While I’m sure the initial introduction of the gift was enough to put Dot off it was, no doubt, the none-less-than five minutes of unstoppable joy and laughter I got out of using the fart machine in the restaurant. When I finally became aware of the people around me I asked that the machine be removed from my reach so that we could try to continue dinner as a group of people in our early twenties (read: sort-of adults).
Dot and I started with a Jos. Louis sundae, while Evan and Katy shared a Tower-O-Rings and a peanut-butter and chocolate milkshake. For the main, Dot had the chicken casadia and a Coke, Evan and Katy split the M.E.C. burger with sweet potato strings and a water (literally, one water), and I had the Sweet Ride burger with sweet potato strings and a Coke. The food was fine but the service sucked, so we took the opportunity to pay cash and filed ourselves out hastily.
Back to Evan and Katy’s apartment building, Dot and I waited in the lobby for Dot’s-Friend (in the interest of privacy). Dot noticed that it was impossible to see the tiny address sign for Evan’s building and worried that Dot’s-Friend would have trouble finding the place, and indeed she did. In the end it was all cleared up with a phone call and a few minutes standing at the side of Richmond. After verifying Dot’s-Friend’s identity using fingerprinting, and undertaking a thorough investigation of the car (looking for anyone who might be hiding in it with a butterfly knife, as an example), team-Dot was cleared for departure and so ended the evening.
…until I went back to Evan’s to play with the fart machine.
(P.S. to Dot: To orient yourself in the city (Figure 2), the Civic Centre is approximately where the word “Canal” is, directly south of Parliament Hill; the Byward Market is approximately where the word “Mackenzie” of “Mackenzie King” station is; the University of Ottawa is at Laurier and Campus stations; and, Train is where you’ll be taking the train from when you leave the city.)